Tuesday, October 27, 2015

FAME Group

Had a great group of people with FAME that came early in October for a week of traditional "medical brigades" and also mixing in some new elements as well.

One of those new elements was an experiment with providing a time with no brigade, just education...a time for some lectures on important topics like diabetes, high blood pressure, chikungunya, and more. We worshipped with the Church in Talanga, then had that afternoon people from there, Cantaranas and San Juancito came just for that. I was nervous, but it went very well. Some people were taking copious notes! Afterwards we had a time for people with personal questions to just ask them...as you can see just from this one picture, there was a line, plus there were other providers answering questions as well.

Selfishly I asked Grace (who specializes in dermatology and cosmetic surgery) to remove a cherry angioma I had on my head back at the clinic, and she was more than happy to do it.

Darwin was also more than happy...so he could observe the technique.

Having a dermatologist on the team was a first, and a great pleasure to tackle all the skin issues/problems that people have...with great speed, skill, and information.

Hard to tell from this great picture below, but this is Sampedrana, and in addition to a more focused teaching station, which we will hopefully be expanding in the future, in the back corner on the left are Honduran dental students. Estefany from our clinic in Tegucigalpa was eager to coordinate taking them with us to do medical and dental all four brigade days. The demand was just as high to see the dentists as it was for a medical consult. They did many extractions, but also some cleanings which was great to hear.

Darwin's heart for people shone when we talked about Sampedrana...it has been almost a year and a half since we had taken a medical team (that long since we had one period), and most people there have no other access to care. We talked about how we could send someone once a month maybe to see patients and give out medicines...a smaller monthly clinic type thing. Not really in the budget right now (between transportation, the medicines, and a small offering to the physician willing to go...probably $250 or more per month? And maybe they could see 50 or more patients?) but I love the idea, and the heart it shows. Have to keep praying about that one.